But it didn’t excuse it.
They had no time for excuses.
He was laboring under an unpaid price of the Wild Magic: to forgive an enemy. He wondered if—just now—he’d failed to pay it, and searched his heart.
But no. Belepheriel was not an enemy, no matter how harshly they had treated one another. He was only an obstacle. Kellen was truly sorry that Belepheriel’s grief had caused him to force the issue that lay between them, and not to leave it for some other time. He would make amends for that, if it were possible. Jermayan would know.
“Your counsel, Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said, interrupting his thoughts.
“You see what I have seen, Redhelwar,” Kellen said. “The scouts did not see the second party, the one that went to burn Ysterialpoerin. It may have left earlier, perhaps to lie in wait until the attack on the camp began. Perhaps not. We know they can move through the day if they must.”
Be right. No matter what, you always have to be right. Especially now.
“The plan to destroy Ysterialpoerin is good in their eyes,” he went on. “The plan to map the caverns before invading is good in ours. They know we’re here. They know what we mean to do, I think.”
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to call up the intuitive understanding of the enemy that he needed.
“Sit,” Redhelwar said. “I ask too much of you.”
Kellen sank into the chair that Gairith had so recently vacated, feeling as if his bones were suddenly made of Artenel’s most fragile glass. “You ask what must be asked,” he replied, knowing, if he knew nothing else, that this was the right thing to say. “And I must give what must be given.” There was an answer here, somewhere, just beyond his reach.
“If we cannot send scouts in to map the caverns,” Adaerion said reluctantly, into the silence, “we must go in with Vestakia to lead us. And that means we can only attack one enclave at a time. And we do not know how many entrances or exits they may have.”
“Ancaladar saw only two,” Padredor said. “His eyes are sharp.”
“So we will guard the one, so that nothing may pass it, and attack the other. Kellen is right: the Enemy would love nothing better than to destroy Ysterialpoerin in the face of our gathered strength, so we must guard it as well. We shall send a third of the army to do that—and all the unicorns, for their senses may discover what ours do not. A third again to the farther cavern, and the Mountainfolk with them, as they are expert in matters of snow and ice, so that no matter what seeks to escape the cavern or through the mountains, nothing shall—and if there are other exits elsewhere in the mountains, there will be sufficient forces to dispatch against what may issue from them. Ancaladar will tell us what he sees, for I think there is no way this time for us to gain his strength beneath the ground.”
“No!” Kellen burst out, feeling a jolt of warning course through him.
Everyone stopped and looked at him.
“Will you speak, Knight-Mage?” Redhelwar said courteously. But this time Kellen sensed impatience and reluctance as well. This time, Redhelwar did not wish to hear him.
Redhelwar meant to split the army into thirds, and send Vestakia into the nearer cavern with the attack force. It wasn’t the splitting of the army that disturbed Kellen, because they couldn’t get the full force of the army into the caverns anyway. Having to do without Jermayan and Ancaladar was a blow, but the dragon would be useful outside, and it wasn’t impossible that they’d manage to find him a back door once they were inside.
Intuition had struck with the force of a blow. It still wasn’t clear to Kellen what they should do, but suddenly what they must not do was completely clear to him.
If Redhelwar sent his forces down into that cavern without scouting ahead, there would be a disaster.
“Redhelwar, hear me. You asked my counsel, and now I give it. Wait. Guard the city, guard the entrance to the other cavern, yes. But send Idalia and me into the nearer cavern before you send the army in. She can map it. I can protect her. If we can find the village at the cavern’s heart, we won’t need Vestakia when we invade. She can come in afterward to check that the cavern is clear, and we will protect our most valuable asset.”
“What speaks to me, Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar asked, his voice cool and expressionless. “Your head… or your heart?”
“Neither,” Kellen answered, honestly confused. He was sure that by now he’d offended everyone here, and he only hoped that truth could make up for that. “The Wild Magic speaks, Redhelwar, and only the Wild Magic. Send me alone if you wish—I am not as good at maps as Idalia, but—”
Adaerion leaned over to speak into Redhelwar’s ear, saying something too low for Kellen to hear.
“You say this now, Knight-Mage, yet you did not say it when I asked for your counsel,” Redhelwar said, his voice still neutral.
Kellen struggled to put what was only a feeling into words, knowing that he must convince Redhelwar, Adaerion—everyone here. How had the Knight-Mage of the past ever managed it?
“I was listening, Army’s General,” he said. “To… what comes.” He looked past Redhelwar, and his eye fell on a xaqiue board, set up and ready for play. Ready for play—but as yet, no moves had been made on the board.
He got to his feet and walked over to the board.
“Redhelwar,” he said, “tell me how this game will play out.”
The Elven general looked at the board. “No one can say, Kellen. None of the pieces has yet been moved, nor do I know who the players are.”
“Yet if I were to move a piece, you could begin to say,” Kellen said.
“Yes,” Redhelwar said. “And were you to be my opponent, I could also say who would win.”
“At xaqiue, this is indeed true.” Kellen agreed. “I am a poor player. But the game is a fine teacher. Tell me you wish to guard Ysterialpoerin, to seal the far cavern with troops… I see no opening for Their victory. Tell me you mean to send your troops down into unmapped, unscouted caverns… and the Wild Magic shows me an opening They can exploit.”
“But no more,” Redhelwar said.
“Not yet,” Kellen said, wishing to shout at them, But it shows me that. And you have to listen! But he did not dare; did not dare offend them, not when they had only just begun to take him seriously.
“Discussion,” Redhelwar said to his commanders.
“While we wait for Kellen and Idalia to return—or not—from the caverns, the Shadowed Elves could launch a second attack at Ysterialpoerin. The first force evaded our scouts and our sentries. Perhaps a second one would as well. Then Ysterialpoerin would burn because we had not attacked the Shadowed Elves immediately,” Ninolion said.
“If the caverns can be mapped, so that we can attack without risking Vestakia in the forefront of an attack, it is the more prudent course,” Adaerion said.
“But perhaps it is a feint within a feint; perhaps they wish us to commit our strength to the cavern and leave Vestakia at the camp. Then while we are engaged in the caverns, they will attack the camp and take her there,” Arambor suggested.
“Having somehow moved sufficient strength to do so out of either of the caverns directly beneath our regard,” Adaerion noted dryly.
Redhelwar raised a hand, stopping what promised to become a long, drawn-out byplay.
“Whether Vestakia goes or not,” Padredor said slowly, “whether the Shadowed Elves attack us or not, it would be good to know how the caverns lie before we are in them. It seems to me that they worked very hard to turn us from reaching them—and now that we are here, it seems that they wish to distract us from entering them. To discover the reason for that would be a thing worth knowing, I believe.”
Around the pavilion it went, with each of the commanders giving his opinion—let Kellen go, attack at once, find another plan entirely.
“Dionan, you have not shared your thoughts,” Redhelwar said, when everyone else had spoken.
“We cannot attack the caverns tomorrow, not if all the armies of Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon, their dragons, and their flying horses, were here to aid us,” Dionan said simply. “We must place three armies into position—one of them around Ysterialpoerin—and establish them against the weather, which grows no more clement. The day after tomorrow, if Leaf and Star favor us, is the earliest we can descend against the Shadowed Elves. Therefore, my counsel is this: let Kellen move his piece in the game. When he returns, and can tell us more of the enemy’s mind and disposition, we shall be ready as well.”
There was a silence after everyone had spoken. Kellen could almost feel Redhelwar weighing the possibilities—the opinions of his commanders, the condition of his army, the situation at Ysterialpoerin…
And more.
Sending Kellen to scout the caverns would change the balance of power in the Elven army. Kellen couldn’t quite grasp it—not in a way he could put into words—but he could feel it, the way he’d learned to feel changes in the weather.
And Redhelwar knew it, and was deciding whether that was worth the risk, as well as all the rest.